CREATIVE STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Colin G Prickett Arps

First and foremost I am a street photographer. I love visiting cities to explore their streets, history and architecture and to capture those unforeseen moments. I am also drawn to bright colours which are not so easy to find in these pandemic times. Lately I have been trying my hand at landscapes but with mixed success as I am really not the type for chasing sunrises or hiking over hills and valleys.

Amazingly, however, I still have pre-pandemic folders to finish going through. Perhaps there is a gem or two still waiting to be discovered on the hard-drive.

Photographically

I am looking for creative angles and perspectives in-camera, searching for unusual subjects like the car park image in A Car for all Seasons, and employing filters and effects in post-production for more artful solutions.

Very often my finished images lose their real world identity as I try to unravel the hidden art that lurks within, but photography is always my starting point even though I seem to be heading deeper into the realms of impressionism these days. Could there be a cure for such hedonism (below)?

My shooting technique is to keep moving, hoping to discover something of interest along the way - it’s all serendipity. Occasionally

I might experiment with ICM to turn images into abstract art, as in Follow The Crowd, or I might be attempting to reveal those shop window reflections that our brains often fail to register – sometimes with the help of a little extra software manipulation (The Butcher’s Shop).

In post-production I am trying to rein in some of my more extravagant tendencies (just a little). I rarely make composites from multiple images and I will definitely avoid any intense selection work – life’s far too short for that, Dance to the Music would be a typical outcome.

I might also play with borders to add further interest (Shot to Pieces).

Most of my fellow club members can guess which images are mine, just as I can with theirs. I think we all have little signatures in the way we take photos and of the subjects we shoot. One of the biggest compliments I ever received was at my “Breaking Out” exhibition when some rather fashionablelooking art students bought a selection of my postcards as reference material for their courses. In fact, when randomly thrown together in a box like that, they certainly shouted out who I was as a photographer.

As a member of this creative group I naturally lean towards experimentation and pushing boundaries - which rarely endears me to judges - so in the absence of any looming exhibitions I think I must be largely creating just for myself these days.

...and then there’s my street photography and my new 35mm f/0.9 lens which will just have to wait until the pandemic goes away.